Answer these questions in a paragraph or more. Use teh prompts below for assistance. 1) Describe how the Daubert Standard differs from the Frye Standard. The Frye Standard involves the general acceptance of a theory or technique within the field of science. Basically, if it’s good enough for the scientific community, it’s good enough to be presented in court. This is still the standard in many states. The Daubert Standard has been accepted at the federal level and is the standard in several states. The Daubert Standard uses the Frye Standard as one of its prongs of its reliability component (in addition to whether the theory can be tested, whether the error rate is acceptable, and whether the theory has faced peer review). In addition to reliability, the court must decide whether the testimony is relevant to the case and whether its probative value outweighs the potential prejudice it will produce. Although several answers discussed that Daubert was an “improvement” over Frye , it really just added more requirements without increasing the scientific rigor. Some of these requirements are redundant. For example, if a theory is generally accepted within a scientific discipline , it’s going to be (a) peer reviewed and (b) testable. The requirement of “an acceptable error rate” sounds nice, but because no one has ever defined what constitutes an acceptable error rate, it’s kind of meaningless. The biggest actual difference involves the “relevance” and “legal sufficiency” components. These are both determined by the court. Thus, even if the science is sound, the court can prevent the testimony if the court wants to. In practice, this can be very subjective. In fact, in cases like Daubert , the court often prevents scientific testimony about increased vulnerability or rates of exposure because it views the relationship between the cause and effect as tenuous. For instance, I’ve read cases where an epidiomological analysis of the effect of a particular chemical on a particular health issue was judged to be too prejudicial (e.g., “You say that Chemical X causes cancer, but people who have no exposure to Chemical X get cancer, so how do you know that this particular chemical caused this particular case of cancer? Maybe the plaintiff would have gotten cancer anyway.”). So, the biggest difference between the two standards is that a lot of the deference to science has been decreased in favor of the discretion of the judge.  Now, I don’t expect you to know or state all of these things, but I do expect you to do more than copy and paste information from the PowerPoint slides. You should give some analysis. 2) What are some advantages that Science has over other ways of knowing? The main difference between science and other ways of knowing is that it involves a falsifiable test. In fact, several elements of science can appear in logical deduction; that’s why hypotheses have to be logical and based on previous observation. To some e ...

1. Answer these questions in a paragraph or more. Use teh prompts
below for assistance.
1)
Describe how the Daubert Standard differs from the Frye
Standard.
The
Frye Standard
involves the general acceptance of a theory or technique within
the field of science. Basically, if it’s good enough for the
scientific community, it’s good enough to be presented in court.
This is still the standard in many states.
The
Daubert Standard
has been accepted at the federal level and is the standard in
several states. The
Daubert Standard
uses the
Frye Standard
as one of its prongs of its reliability component (in addition to
whether the theory can be tested, whether the error rate is
acceptable, and whether the theory has faced peer review). In
addition to reliability, the court must decide whether the
testimony is relevant to the case and whether its probative value
outweighs the potential prejudice it will produce.
Although several answers discussed that
Daubert
was an “improvement” over
Frye

2. , it really just added more requirements without increasing the
scientific rigor. Some of these requirements are redundant. For
example, if a theory is
generally accepted
within a
scientific discipline
, it’s going to be (a) peer reviewed and (b) testable. The
requirement of “an acceptable error rate” sounds nice, but
because no one has ever defined what constitutes an acceptable
error rate, it’s kind of meaningless. The biggest actual
difference involves the “relevance” and “legal sufficiency”
components. These are both determined by the court. Thus, even
if the science is sound, the court can prevent the testimony if
the court wants to. In practice, this can be very subjective. In
fact, in cases like
Daubert
, the court often prevents scientific testimony about increased
vulnerability or rates of exposure because it views the
relationship between the cause and effect as tenuous. For
instance, I’ve read cases where an epidiomological analysis of
the effect of a particular chemical on a particular health issue
was judged to be too prejudicial (e.g., “You say that Chemical
X causes cancer, but people who have no exposure to Chemical
X get cancer, so how do you know that this particular chemical
caused this particular case of cancer? Maybe the plaintiff would
have gotten cancer anyway.”). So, the biggest difference
between the two standards is that a lot of the deference to
science has been decreased in favor of the discretion of the
judge.
Now, I don’t expect you to know or state all of these things, but
I do expect you to do more than copy and paste information
from the PowerPoint slides. You should give some analysis.
2)

3. What are some advantages that Science has over other ways of
knowing?
The main difference between science and other ways of knowing
is that it involves a falsifiable test. In fact, several elements of
science can appear in logical deduction; that’s why hypotheses
have to be logical and based on previous observation. To some
extent, logic can be “peer reviewed,” in the sense that legal
judgements can be reviewed in the appeals process to make sure
that the reasoning of the decision is sound. Only science,
though, creates a falsifiable test.
Science can overlap with authority, because scientists are often
authorities. However, there is a difference between asserting
that something is true and proving evidence that something is
true. Also, while authority relies on credentials, science does
not; if the methods of the test are sound, it doesn’t matter who
is conducting the test. To put it another way, with science the
value of the knowledge lies within the process, not the person.
In many respects, science is the opposite of intuition in the
sense that science has rigorous rules, while intuition is an
impulse. Similarly, intuition is based on feeling rather than
observable tests.
3)
Describe the rationale for having a mental health court.
Most people were correct in identifying that mental health
courts tended to be for non-violent, non-habitual offenders
whose problem was thought to lie in the individual’s
psychological disorder. However, several people failed to
mention why a separate court would be helpful. The real

4. advantage is that the people involved in the mental health court
develop a certain familiarity and expertise dealing with these
types of cases. They are familiar with the terminology, the
research, the available treatments, etc. So, rather than taking a
long time looking into the minute details of these individual
conditions, judges and other personnel come at the case with a
pre-existing knowledge base. The use of these course is
associated with decreased recidivism, which is a good indicator
of effectiveness. With most psychological disorders, increased
stress is associated with increased symptom severity, and prison
can be very stressful. The fact that this defendants are able to
avoid prison and receive effective treatment is likely the reason
for this decreased recidivism
4)
Describe how cognitive load can be used in lie detection.
Cognitive load involves being occupied with a mental task. So,
the more difficult or numerous the tasks, the “heavier” the load.
The use of cognitive load as a means of lie detection is
predicated on the idea that someone who is lying goes into an
interview with a higher cognitive load than someone who is not
lying. Lying, after all, involves maintaining an alternate
narrative to what actually happened. So, rather than recalling an
event based on actual memory, a liar has to remember the
fabricated narrative and how it differs from the real narrative.
Thus, by further increasing the cognitive load (by asking one to
tell the story backwards or come up with details on the spot),
you are making it more difficult for the person to keep the story
straight (i.e., rather than just reporting the information, the task
now requires coming up with new information that fits into the
fabricated narrative in a consistent manner). This increases the
chances that the person will slip up and report a detail that is
inconsistent with their overall story and get caught in the lie.

5. 5)
What are some reasons that suspects provide false confessions?
There are several reasons that individuals provide false
confessions. First, some are doing it voluntarily. They may
think that they actually committed a crime due to some
psychotic condition, or they may know that they did not commit
the crime but are confessing to it for attention or to protect
someone else. Second, police may convince the suspect that
they have enough evidence to charge the suspect for a more
serious crime (even when they don’t) and make pleading to a
lesser charge sound like the only option. Finally, the suspect
may not know what happened when the crime was committed,
and this confusion or anxiety makes them susceptable to police
coercsion to the point where the suspect comes to believe that
he or she actually comitted the crime. In some cases, the
interviewer may contaminate the interview by providing details
(perhaps accidentally) of the crime that later make it in to the
suspect’s narrative, increasing the perception of guilt.
6)
Describe some interview techniques that help to minimize the
chances of creating false memories? Why are these techniques
effective?
Basically, I was looking for you to discuss aspects of the
cognitive interview (e.g. not interrupting, avoiding leading
questions, etc.) and why they are effective in minimizing false
memories. One problem I noticed was that people conflated the
eyewitness identification techniques (e.g. lineups) with the
“interview techniques” that the question requires. I didn’t count

6. off for discussing identification techniques, but if you have a
one-paragraph answer, and half of your answer isn’t addressing
the question, you were more likely to lose points. A second
problem that I noticed was that many people discussed the
cognitive interview but didn’t address the second part of the
question: why it works. You did lose points for failing to
address this.